


Revenant

by zelda_zee



Category: Lost
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 16:49:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2075622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zelda_zee/pseuds/zelda_zee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It was just a week after Jack left that the dreams began.</i> </p><p>It's only after Jack takes Ben's offer and leaves the island that Sawyer discovers he's not alone.</p><p>Originally posted 11/30/06.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revenant

It was just a week after Jack left that the dreams began.

At first Sawyer only sensed Jack there as he slept, the way he had sensed him when he’d been delirious from infection, a quiet, watching, waiting presence at his bedside. Sawyer couldn’t see him or hear him or feel him, he just somehow _knew_ that he was there.

As the night progressed, Sawyer would gradually become aware of him. It was nothing tangible, just the feeling of another person nearby -- the way the air became a bit warmer, the space a bit more filled. The way he didn’t feel quite so alone.

When he woke, he lay on his pallet on the sand, trying to detect Jack’s presence with his waking self. But all he felt was the heat of the morning sun, and the warm breeze blowing in off the sea, and the itch over his heart that meant he was healing.

During the day he kept to himself as much as he could, avoiding the power plays that Jack’s sudden absence had prompted. He sat apart -- dozing, watching the sea, missing the library in the hatch -- while Locke, Sayid and Paulo fought it out with words and fists, and the survivors fractured into opposing camps.

No one talked about Jack. It was as if he’d never existed, as if the blood and sweat and tears he’d shed to try to save them had never made a damn bit of difference.

Sawyer couldn’t stand that. He said Jack’s name out loud to himself as he sat on the beach, staring at the horizon. _Jack_ he murmured, rolling the word around on his tongue. _Jack_.

Kate avoided him, and that hurt, but it was no more than he’d expected. _Tiger don’t change their stripes_. He knew nothing would ever have happened between them if they hadn’t believed he was already a dead man. But he’d had the temerity to live, so Kate avoided his eyes and kept as far away from him as she could. Sawyer thought he’d like to be able to talk to her about Jack, but she was like the rest of them, never saying his name, acting like he’d never lived amongst them.

Sawyer began to wonder if Jack had even been real. Maybe he hadn’t existed at all, maybe he’d been some kind of delusion. Maybe Jack really belonged only to him, and that was why he’d taken to visiting him at night while he slept. Though Sawyer was pretty sure that if Jack had been a figment of his own imagination he wouldn’t have made him so damned annoying.

The first time Jack touched him in a dream, it made Sawyer's heart pound so hard that it leapt against his ribcage like it was trying to escape. All it had taken was the familiar sensation of Jack’s hand on his forehead, a warm, heavy pressure resting there for a moment and then lifting. It felt real, real as life, real as Jack, steady and firm.

When he awoke that morning he could still feel an echo of Jack’s palm against his skin, and for the first time since their return he felt strong, felt like getting up and accomplishing something. That day he started chopping down trees to build himself a shelter. The group was arguing about whether to move camp again… the new hatch, the caves. He let them argue. He was staying on the beach, right where Jack would be able to find him. Whether the Jack he was staying for was the one who visited him in the night or the one who might someday be returning to them from the sea or the sky was something Sawyer avoided thinking about.

The first night he slept in his new shelter, Jack materialized in the doorway and beckoned him out. He looked just as solid as he always had. He even smelled like Jack, a rich, earthy scent, vaguely musky. But his eyes were different. They were dark in the night, but when the light of the full moon hit them, they were illuminated with an opalescence that made them shine with a silvery glow.

They walked for a long time, following the water’s edge, and then they turned and walked back. They didn’t speak a word, but when they reached the door of Sawyer’s shelter, Jack looked at him.

“I’ll be right here,” he said, a funny little smile on his face. “Whenever you want to find me.”

It became their pattern, walking for hours along the moonlit shore. Gradually they started talking, quiet conversations that were markedly different from their interactions when Jack was living with them. Then it had just been disagreements and competition and, at best, grudging respect. But now they talked about everything. Sawyer had always thought Jack would be shocked at the things he had done, but Jack just listened quietly, taking it in, not seeming to be surprised or dismayed.

When he tore the letter up and let it wash away with the outgoing tide, Jack stood behind him, watching. Sawyer turned toward him once it was gone, but Jack didn't say anything, just fell into step beside him, walking him back to camp as the sky turned pink with the dawn.

In the morning Sawyer searched for the letter, thinking he would do what he had done in his dream, take it to the water's edge and let the sea wash it away. But he couldn't find it anywhere.

When Sawyer recounted the latest cataclysms within the camp, the factions and schisms, the defections to the Others, the defection of an occasional Other to them, Jack would reply by asking what Sawyer thought, and then Sawyer would actually have to formulate an opinion when he’d have preferred to just pretend to ignore it all. But dream Jack was as stubborn as real Jack, and he demanded answers.

When Sawyer told Jack that he thought there was going to be violence between the factions but that everyone was too frightened to do anything to prevent it, Jack asked him what he was going to do. Sawyer stopped and looked at him, and Jack gazed back with that honest, assessing stare that always and against his will had made Sawyer want to be more than he was.

“You can fix this,” Jack said.

“I ain’t the one who fixes things, Doc. I’m the one who breaks ‘em, remember?”

“Not anymore,” Jack said, and the certainty in his voice sent a jolt right through Sawyer’s body. “Now it’s up to you.”

But it wasn’t that easy. Maybe it had been for Jack. He always thought he knew better than anyone what to do, and he didn’t hesitate to do it. Sawyer knew what to do too, but that had never meant that he could or would lift a finger. It took more than Jack coming to him in a dream and telling him to get off his ass to change that.

No, it took night after night of Jack telling him, urging him, cajoling him, even threatening him, to get him to consider actually doing something.

“Goddammit!” Sawyer yelled in the middle of one argument. “This is _my_ fuckin’ dream! Why the hell can’t you just give me a break?!”

“I never gave you a break before,” Jack replied angrily. “I’m not about to start now.”

Sawyer glared at him for a long moment, and then the fight suddenly drained out of him.

“Where the hell are you, Jack?” he said tiredly. “Why’d you go?”

“You’ll be fine, Sawyer,” Jack said. He put his hand on Sawyer’s shoulder, squeezing. “Don’t be afraid.” Sawyer knew that Jack couldn’t answer his questions, because this Jack, no matter how real he seemed, couldn’t tell Sawyer anything that he didn’t already know.

The next morning he went searching for Kate and made her sit down and talk to him, and then they went and found Sayid, and when Sawyer was able to bring Hurley over to their side, he knew that between the four of them they’d be able to get things to settle down pretty quick. Surprisingly, everyone seemed to expect him to take the lead, even Sayid. In the end, the survivors decided to split up. Locke and his people took the hatch, and Paulo and Nikki moved farther down the beach with their discontented little band, and Sawyer found himself in the unfamiliar situation of having a vested interest in keeping the little society of those who had thrown in their lot in with him intact.

“You’re doing fine,” Jack assured him, as they walked along the water’s edge, the waves lapping at their bare feet. “You can trust Sayid, you should lean on him more. I know you’ve got that bond with Kate, but you shouldn’t rely on her too much. But I know you know that.” He dropped his eyes. Kate was still a sore subject between them.

“Whatever bond I felt with Kate is pretty much history at this point, Doc,” Sawyer said. “And _you_ could trust Sayid. He would’ve gone to hell and back for you. It’s not the same with us. ‘Less you wanna start hangin’ out in his dreams, tell him he needs to watch my back.”

Jack stopped in his tracks and turned to look at him. “You want me to do that, Sawyer? Leave you to your own devices?”

Sawyer looked up the beach toward camp, then tilted his head back to take in the star-filled sky. He was stalling, but Jack remained where he was, waiting. He looked back at Jack, met his eyes, feeling an instant connection spark between them, and he realized that he made it a point to avoid looking Jack straight in the eye. It was too intense, too startlingly intimate to be something he could do easily. But now he couldn’t look away, couldn’t break the hold of those dark eyes, shining silver in the moonlight, glowing like a cat’s, strange and otherworldly.

“No, Doc,” he said finally. “I don’t want you to do that.”

Jack smiled. “I know,” he said softly. “I wouldn’t do that to you. You’re stuck with me now for the duration.”

“The duration of what?” asked Sawyer.

“Good question,” Jack said. He turned to continue on down the beach, so Sawyer followed.

Sawyer found his days were busier now. He never realized how much work it took to keep such a small group of people fed and sheltered and as safe and healthy as they could be under the circumstances. He couldn’t comprehend how Jack had done it and still had time for doctoring. Maybe that’s why Jack had sucked at some of the leader shit, he thought, smiling to himself. That, and needing to be liked. Sawyer didn’t much care if people liked him. Turned out they were willing to trust him because they knew he’d destroy anyone who got in their way, and that was good enough to get the job done.

Jack didn’t always approve of the way he handled things. He’d tell Sawyer he should be more careful of people’s feelings, work harder to win them over. Sawyer just laughed at him.

“They’re free to move on any time, Doc,” he insisted. “Or they can kick me out and find some other loser to be in charge, and you’re crazy if you think I’d shed any tears over that. But they ain’t gonna. Nobody else wants to be stuck in this lousy job you talked me into, and I don’t blame ‘em one little bit.”

Jack sighed. “It’s a shit job, Sawyer,” he admitted. “But you’re really good at it.”

“Figures. Only jobs I ever was any good at were all shit, one way or another.”

It didn’t surprise Sawyer the first time Jack kissed him.

It was on one of their walks, and they hadn’t spoken yet that night, simply walking quietly side by side, the white sand radiant under the light of the full moon. Jack stopped and his hand came to Sawyer’s face, cupping his cheek, fingers sliding through his hair, around to the back of his head. And then Jack’s lips were on his and they were soft and smooth and his breath was hot and it felt _real_ , nothing like a dream. Sawyer had never kissed a man before, so the burr of stubble was something new, as was the feeling of _being_ kissed -- of letting someone else take the lead. Somehow, it was easy to let Jack’s hand tilt his head where he wanted him, and let Jack’s lips coax his open, and let Jack’s tongue enter his mouth and take his breath away. Sawyer moaned as their tongues twined together, rubbing against each other in a rough slide. His arms went around Jack, pulling him closer, and it was odd to feel how big he was, how solid his muscles felt beneath Sawyer’s palms as he ran his hands up Jack’s arms and over his shoulders.

He let Jack lie him down on the sand and kiss him until time lost all meaning, until the stars in the sky faded away and the only ones that remained were the ones exploding behind Sawyer’s eyelids at the feeling of their bodies pressed tightly together, and Jack’s hands roaming over his skin, and Jack’s mouth, hot and wet and relentless, driving him out of his mind.

He woke to the growing light, his cock hard and aching. He’d never jerked off fantasizing about Jack before, but now he didn’t hesitate, he wrapped his hand around his dick and thought about that mouth, that endless, night-long kiss, and he was coming before he could get any further, coming long and hard, his body curling up off the ground as he bit his lip to keep in the sounds that wanted to emerge, but not able to stifle the single deep, shuddering gasp that broke free.

When Sawyer thought about it later, he wondered how it was he hadn't figured out what he wanted from Jack until now, when Jack was gone. Sawyer had always prided himself on his lack of illusions about his own character, on being able to see clearly into the darkness of his own soul. But he hadn’t seen this. He hadn’t wanted to. In reality, it was too frightening, the thought of letting Jack in. But somehow in his dreams he could allow Jack to look into his soul too, to see all the darkness inside and not fear that he would turn away in disgust.

A few nights later, when Jack dropped to his knees in the sand and engulfed him in the lush, caressing pressure of his mouth, the pleasure that hit him was so strong that he couldn’t make a sound. Sawyer let his head fall back and his hips push forward, and his hands brush gently over Jack’s short, silky hair. He couldn’t see, couldn’t pry his eyes open, but as Jack's tongue circled the head of his cock he found his voice, crying out. Jack’s hands squeezed his ass, bringing him in deeper, harder, and it was the sound of his own harsh shout, wrung from the very center of his body, that woke him as it ripped out of his throat. He arched off the ground as he shot in sharp spurts onto his stomach and chest, falling back with a stunned gasp, aftershocks coursing through him in waves. He lay still in the darkness, listening for any indication that he’d been heard, before releasing a shaky breath and relaxing back onto his blanket.

If this was how it was going to be, he thought, he would have to learn to keep his mouth shut in his sleep. What if he started calling out Jack’s name in the middle of the night?

Apparently, that was how it was going to be, because Jack visited him nearly every night and more often than not they ended up rolling around in the sand, laughing and breathless. Sawyer would wake alone in his tent, his cock hard and nearly bursting, or coming all over himself, his body awash in blissful warmth. He couldn’t help it, and he didn’t want to. His dreams were as real to him now as his waking hours, and he didn’t care if it meant he was crazy, because he knew Jack was the only thing keeping him sane, and without him Sawyer would’ve been lost a long time ago.

It didn’t hurt at all the first time. Sawyer knew that was because it was happening in a dream, that if it was real he’d have had to take the pain with the pleasure. He wouldn’t have minded that. Pain had never been something he feared. He understood pain, and would have welcomed it coming from Jack, as he always had. But when Jack moved inside him, when he began fucking him in long, slow strokes, Sawyer forgot all about pain, all about everything but Jack and what it felt like to be completely taken over, willing to abdicate control and let himself be possessed. Jack’s body felt so powerful compared to anything he had known before, a vast well of coiled energy, and all of it focused on him. Sawyer opened his eyes and looked straight into Jack’s, deep down inside that glittering silver stare, letting Jack in, letting himself be wholly taken.

His breath left him in a shuddering sigh. So hard. So hot. So different, so intense, each thrust taking him higher, sensation building, flowing outward, upward through his body, into his limbs, sparking up his nerves in a way that was wholly new.

“You feel that?” Jack asked as he pushed in deep.

“Oh fuck yeah,” Sawyer moaned, his voice rising. “I feel it. _Oh fuck_ , I feel it.”

“I’m in you,” breathed Jack. “A part of you. I’m a part of you. Say it” He sped up, every thrust angling perfectly, pushing waves of heat up his spine, causing his cock to pulse with each quickening heartbeat. His head fell back and his mouth fell open and everything fell away, everything but Jack above him and inside him and around him and he felt like he was breaking, breaking into tiny bits and it felt like heaven, pure and clean, too good to be real.

“You’re… a part… of me…” he gasped. His body jerked as he felt Jack’s hand wrap around him, felt that big, rough palm encircle him, moving in time, his body caught between, forward into Jack’s hand, back onto his cock, his mind emptied of everything but those twin sensations and the tension they created, stretching him taut like a bowstring, quivering on the verge of release.

He came with a ragged cry, bucking and twisting, sticky wetness spilling through his fingers as he stroked down over his cock, working through it until the final spasm shook his frame.

“Jack,” he murmured drowsily to the still, silent air of his shelter, his body aching with emptiness. “Jack,” he sighed as he drifted back to sleep.

Jack visited him often, not every night, but more nights than not. Sometimes Jackjust lay next to him on his pallet, his body warm against Sawyer’s. Sometimes they walked along the beach, talking. Sometimes they made love. _Making love_ , Jack had corrected him once, when Sawyer had called it fucking. Sawyer still called it fucking, but in his head now, sometimes, he used Jack’s phrase.

He always woke when he came. He would lie there, breathless and sweaty, his body hungry for Jack’s touch, aching to just once feel Jack’s body shake with orgasm, to hear the sound he would make when it took him. But Sawyer always came first, and it always woke him. He grew accustomed to the loneliness of it, lying in the dark, listening to the sound of his own heartbeat in the silence, feeling the absence beside him. Sometimes he’d wonder if this was what his life was to be like, spending his nights with a phantom lover, always waking alone.

Time passed. Jack had been gone for months. Sawyer let his hair and beard grow, chopping them off with one of Locke’s knives when they got too long. Kate said he looked like a wild man. Said he had gray in his beard, but he could ignore it as long as he didn't look in a mirror. He guessed it wasn’t a criticism really, because Sayid did too, and she didn’t seem to mind it any on him. He got along better with the both of them once they became inseparable.

Clothes became more tattered, supplies ran low. There was talk of a raiding party against the Others, but in the end Sawyer wasn’t willing to endanger lives just to get a bunch of stuff they had learned to live without. Besides, some of their people had joined the Others, and no one wanted to risk harming anyone who had once been a member of their tribe.

By some miracle, they were surviving, and the Others and the monsters were leaving them alone. If someday that delicate balance was tipped by someone else’s hand, that was one thing, but Sawyer wasn’t willing to be the one to tip it himself.

Hurley lost a _lot_ of weight. Aaron started crawling, then walking. Sun had a baby girl. Juliet moved back and forth between them and the Others, seemingly at home in either group. Locke vanished into the jungle, which surprised no one. The remnants of his group returned to camp, as did Nikki and Paulo.

When Sawyer stopped and thought about it, which wasn’t often, he still couldn’t believe that somehow he was the one who had had ended up cramming his feet into Jack’s ill-fitting shoes. He tried not to think on it, because every time he did, he was overwhelmed with how utterly ridiculous it was that he, of all people, would even try.

“You’re a model citizen now,” Jack said smugly, as they sat side by side, watching the shimmering white orb of the moon reflected in the waves. Sawyer had long since noticed that the moon was always full in his dreams, and its reflected light was what made Jack’s eyes glow. He was used to it now, it didn’t unnerve him as it had at first.

“I s’pose you think you deserve credit for that,” Sawyer grumbled.

Jack smiled. “You’d still be sitting on your ass if it wasn’t for me, and you know it.”

“Yeah,” Sawyer said, lifting a handful of sand, and letting the grains sift through his fingers. “And I’d be a helluva lot happier sittin’ on my ass, then I am runnin’ ‘round tryin’ to keep shit together for you.”

Jack shook his head. “Bullshit,” he said. “You’ve never been happier.”

Sawyer frowned at him. “Well, that ain’t sayin’ much. And I’d be a lot happier if you were really here.”

“Would you?” Jack asked.

“’Course I would, Doc,” Sawyer said, squinting at him. “You know that.”

“What would you do if I were here, Sawyer? What would you say to me?”

“I… I…” Sawyer stopped for a moment, nonplussed. “I’d tell you… I’d say… Fuck, Jack, I don’t know. I’d think of somethin’. I’d make it right between us somehow, at the very least. Maybe I’d… Maybe I’d tell you ‘bout all this.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “About everything.”

When the sky lightened to gray, Jack stood. Sawyer got to his feet and started back toward camp.

“Sawyer,” Jack said. He turned. Jack was standing still, watching him. Slowly, Sawyer walked back to him.

“I have to go.”

“Okay,” Sawyer said. “See you tonight.”

“No, I mean I _really_ have to go this time.”

Sawyer froze, his stomach clenching. “What d’you mean?”

“You don’t need me anymore,” Jack said. “You’ll see.”

“I need you,” Sawyer blurted, his voice catching. “I need you, dammit.”

Jack reached for his hand and held it tightly. 

“You don’t,” he insisted. “And I can’t stay. I’ve stayed too long as it is.”

“You… you said you weren’t goin’ anywhere – you said I was stuck with you –” Sawyer stammered. He could feel himself break out in a cold sweat, feel the goose bumps rise on his skin.

“I’m a part of you,” Jack said quietly. “I _will_ always be a part of you, Sawyer.”

“Jack, don’t leave me.” Sawyer's voice was shaking and he didn’t care that he had tears in his eyes. “You can’t leave me here. I can’t do this without you.”

He grabbed Jack around the arms, his fingers digging in, but he couldn’t feel flesh beneath his hands anymore. He was surfacing, rising slowly out of the dream.

“No! Jack, you fucker, don’t you do this to me. I fuckin’ hate you, you bastard,” he cried as he broke into wakefulness, his face wet, his fingers clawing the blankets. “I fuckin’ need you,” he whispered, closing his eyes to the dawn’s light illuminating his empty shelter. _I fuckin’ love you_ , he thought, but even now he couldn’t say the words out loud.

The dreams stopped after that. In time, his dream Jack and the real Jack blurred together, so that he could no longer remember which one was which. Both were real. Neither was. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be seeing either one of them again.

He lived alone. Somehow he couldn’t find it in himself to be with anyone else. Jack had claimed him, and Sawyer knew deep down to his core that he belonged only to Jack, even if he never laid eyes on him again. He didn’t miss the companionship of another person or someone else’s hands touching his skin. He missed Jack, and _only_ Jack. His body ached for him. When he closed his hand around his dick in the quiet of the night, it was Jack’s name he mouthed silently as he came. He was helpless to fight it, and he didn’t even try.

He pushed it to the back of his mind during the day, getting on with what needed to be done to survive. In time, if he was busy, he could forget, sometimes for hours. But at night the longing and the loneliness overwhelmed him, until he thought it would drive him mad. In his worst moments, he wished Jack had never come to him, had never made him feel things that he could have lived his entire life without.

They lost track of time. It had been years, they knew that much from how the children grew. But time had no significance, so even when they tried to count backward, tried to recapture it, it eluded them.

When they heard the helicopter, everyone ran for cover, fearing some new brand of monster. It landed on an open stretch of sand a short distance from camp. Jack was the first one out and Sawyer watched from the treeline as he strode up the beach with that familiar loping gait. He looked older and thinner, worn down and tired, but he was smiling. Kate raced down the beach and threw herself into his arms, and Sayid was right behind her, everyone else following in a shrieking, joyous stream behind them until Jack was engulfed in the babbling throng and Sawyer couldn’t see him anymore.

He couldn’t make himself move, couldn’t take a single step toward him. His heart was pounding, sweat trickling down his sides. He couldn’t seem to get his breath or form a coherent thought, other than one thing, the only thought that filled his mind.

Not rescue. Not home.

 _Jack_.

Sawyer watched Jack greet each of them, watched him pull them into his tight embrace, tears streaming down his face. He watched him search their faces, ask them questions, saw him smile at how big Aaron was, watched him wrap his arms around Sun, hugging her to him. He watched his face crumple as he was told of their losses, as he noted who was missing from his little welcome band.

Jack wasn’t looking for him, Sawyer thought. His eyes didn’t scan the faces surrounding him hoping to find Sawyer's among them. He didn’t miss Sawyer’s arms encircling him, pulling him close. Sawyer swallowed around the tightness in his throat. This wasn’t _his_ Jack, he reminded himself. This Jack walked on the beach under the bright sun. He belonged to everyone, not just to Sawyer. This Jack didn’t know Sawyer’s secrets. He had never touched Sawyer with passion or tenderness and his eyes did not glow silver like the stars in the night sky.

Sawyer stepped back into the jungle and leaned against the rough bark of a tree trunk, trying to master himself before he had to go back out there and deal with the Jack who he hadn’t seen since the day they were freed from captivity. The one he didn’t have the slightest idea how to deal with.

He’d told his Jack that, given the chance, he’d make it right between them. He had to try to do that much. He straightened up and squared his shoulders and turned around, and there was Jack, standing just a few feet from him, at the edge of the clearing. Sawyer opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

Jack took a slow step toward him and then another, and another, until he was standing right in front of him, only inches between them, looking at him with an unreadable expression on his face. He didn’t speak, just looked at Sawyer with those piercing eyes, looked and looked, searching his face, taking in what Sawyer knew were the changes, the gray, the wrinkles, the jagged scar along his cheekbone. And then Jack’s hand went to the back of Sawyer’s head and he just leaned slightly forward until his forehead touched Sawyer’s, and they stayed like that, breathing together.

Sawyer let his eyelids fall shut and relaxed into Jack’s presence, inhaling his earthy scent, now hidden behind soap and shampoo and anti-perspirant, but still there, still perceptible. He felt something shift inside him, felt a release as the tightness in his chest that he’d been carrying with him all this time loosened. He leaned more heavily onto Jack, letting him hold him up, letting him take back some of the burden.

Unthinkingly his hands went to Jack’s shoulders, rubbing back and forth over the curve of muscle that he knew so well, Jack’s clean shirt feeling coarse beneath his palms. He forced himself to hold back from going any further, though he wanted to press against him, feel his body, kiss him, touch him, the physical need that filled him almost unbearable. But he didn’t give in to it.

 _Not my Jack_ , he kept repeating to himself.

It was Jack who pulled Sawyer in, crushing him to his chest, wrapping his arms around him so tightly that it felt like he would never let go. Sawyer buried his face in the crook of Jack’s neck and clung to him, a muffled moan escaping him. His hands fisted in Jack’s shirt, tugging at the fabric.

“I never stopped looking,” Jack said. His voice was choked and hoarse. Sawyer could feel Jack’s breath blowing damply against his neck as he spoke. “It took so long, too long. I’m so sorry. I did the best I could.”

Sawyer’s hand went to Jack’s head, stroking over the velvety nap of his hair. “’Course you did, Doc. I know that. We all know that.”

“I was so afraid, Sawyer,” Jack said, his lips moving against Sawyer’s skin. “Afraid that by the time I found you you’d all be… gone. That I’d be too late.”

Jack squeezed him tighter for just a moment then released him, stepping back and rubbing his face with his hands, then looking at him with reddened, sorrowful eyes.

Sawyer stared at him, trying to work up a joke, some sarcastic, offhand comment to show Jack that nothing had changed, that he’d been fine without him, hadn’t given him a second thought. But nothing would come. It seemed that this was a moment that was too big to make light of, and that was pretty much a first in Sawyer’s book.

“We did okay, Doc,” Sawyer finally said. “We did the best we could too.” _I did the best I could,_ he wanted to say. _For you_.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” Jack whispered. For a moment he looked terrified, his skin paler, his eyes looking inward. Jack passed a shaking hand over his head, rubbing his palm back and forth over his hair in a gesture that was so familiar. He looked lost, haunted, and Sawyer knew without a doubt that whatever hell they had all just survived, Jack had endured his own version of it, alone and desperate, with no one to talk to, no one who could understand.

He wanted to enfold Jack in his embrace, to reassure him with the warmth of his body and the touch of his hands that it was going to be all right, that his best had been good enough. But he couldn’t do that. All he managed was a weak smile that quickly faded and a glancing touch to Jack’s wrist before they turned in silence and made their way back to the beach.

That night was to be their last on the island. In the morning the helicopter would ferry them out to a ship waiting beyond the horizon. Sawyer sat alone on the beach, in the place where he and Jack had spent so many hours, the place where Jack had first kissed him, the place where they had made love under the shimmering star-filled sky. He watched the reflection of the full moon on the waves, the way it made intersecting diamonds that shattered and reformed with the motion of the water. He inhaled the scent of the island – salt tang of the sea, verdant tang of the jungle, the heady sweetness of night-blooming flowers.

There were some things he would miss. The quiet. The solitude. How everything was stripped down to the bone. How he’d finally been able to work out what mattered and what didn’t.

Going back scared him. Now it was that world which was foreign, and this one, with its dangers and madness and ghosts, which was familiar. He knew who he was in this world. In that one, he didn’t have a clue.

And then Jack was there, sinking down onto the sand beside him. For a moment Jack just gazed out at the inky black waves, the bright white moon, and then he turned to Sawyer and handed him a bottle. Sawyer looked at the label. Jack Daniels.

“Holy hell,” he whispered in awe, and then he hurriedly cracked the seal and unscrewed the cap, tilting it back and taking a long, worshipful swig.

“Careful,” Jack warned. “It’s been a long time.”

Sawyer wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, feeling the liquor burn on the way down, the instantaneous warmth creeping throughout his body.

“Thanks, Doc,” he murmured.

“I brought it for you,” Jack said. “I figured you’d be ready for a drink by the time I found you.”

Sawyer snorted. He held the bottle out for Jack, but he shook his head, so Sawyer took another swallow. Heavenly.

“They said you’ve been the one in charge since I left,” Jack said, gesturing in the direction of the camp.

Sawyer frowned, looking away. “Guess so,” he muttered. “Nobody else’d do it, but somebody had to. Takes a special kind of idiot to do that job, you know. Guess when it came right down to it, there was only two of us on the island.”

“I don’t know how you did it,” Jack said. “I couldn’t have.”

“Bullshit,” Sawyer scoffed. “You _did_ do it. You’re the one who kept us together at the beginning. That was the hardest part.”

Jack shook his head. “I didn’t have it in me for the long haul, Sawyer. I couldn’t have done what you did.”

“Well, you’re the one who found us,” stated Sawyer. “In the end, there ain’t nothin’ matters more ‘n that. And now we’re leavin'. Adios, Craphole Island.” He raised his bottle in a toast, took a deep swig.

“What’ll you do when you get back? Have you thought about that?”

Sawyer cleared his throat. He looked down at the bottle in his hands, picked at the corner of the label with his fingernail.

“Nope. Haven’t given it a thought. Didn’t ever figure there was any point. Figured I was gonna die right here, so why bother?” He sighed. “Everything from before… well, all that’s done with. I ain’t got nothin’ to go back to.”

They sat in silence for a long time, listening to the waves lapping the shore. Sawyer stared at the moon until its brightness filled his vision, until he couldn’t see anything else.

“So, come with me,” Jack said suddenly.

“What?” Sawyer turned to him, momentarily blinded by the darkness. All he could see was the silvery reflection of the moonlight in Jack’s eyes.

“Come with me,” Jack repeated.

Sawyer stared at him. Jack blinked, and the opalescent shine disappeared.

“What're you askin’, Doc?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t have the faintest idea. I just… I searched for you, Sawyer. For all of you, but it was _you_ , of course, but it was _you_ who I needed to find. And now that I’ve found you I don’t know what the hell to do about it.”

Sawyer stared at him, wondering if he was saying what it sounded like he was saying.

“You mean you want me to go with you… to L.A? You mean… you want…?”

“I mean I want you,” Jack said, his voice low, humming with intensity. “With me. Whatever that means. Whatever way works for you. I don’t care, I just want you. I didn’t spend four years searching for you just to lose you again.”

He trailed off as Sawyer leaned in closer, his hand going to Jack’s neck, his thumb rubbing along the line of his jaw. He held Jack’s eyes, still not sure, not believing what he was hearing, what he was seeing. Somehow _this_ Jack, the _real_ Jack, he reminded himself, was merging with _his_ Jack, and he tried to keep them separate, tried to tell himself that only one was real, but the second his lips touched Jack’s he lost that battle. He only meant to kiss him lightly, a brief experiment, but Jack pulled him in close, crushing their lips together, and then he twisted around and pushed Sawyer down onto his back in the sand, never breaking contact, his mouth hard and demanding and hot and wet. Sawyer arched up into him with a groan, desire blazing through him, his hands going to Jack’s head holding him, not letting him come up for air until they were both breathless, gasping into each other’s mouths, and Jack finally tore himself free. He looked down at Sawyer, his eyes shining fiercely, but not with the brilliant, cold light of the moon. Now they burned with a different fire, warm and deep.

“Yes,” Sawyer gasped. “With you. Don’t leave me again, Jack, you can’t leave me again.”

“Not leaving you,” Jack said, stroking Sawyer's forehead, smoothing his hair back. “You’re stuck with me now for the duration.”

Sawyer felt his eyes widen, but Jack was simply watching him with a funny little smile.

“The duration of what?” asked Sawyer, saying each word slowly, carefully. He held his breath, waiting.

Jack leaned down until his lips touched Sawyer’s, so that when he spoke, Sawyer felt his words more than he heard them.

“Good question.”


End file.
